The most interesting team this season is Hyundai and their new car. The other teams are already concentrating on 2017 and the new regulations; Citroën so much that they will not be competing as a manufacturer team. They bring out a privateer team headed by Kris Meeke, instead, while putting most of their effort in building their 2017 challenger. M-Sport has changed their whole line-up, introducing newcomer Eric Camilli who will drive alongside the more experienced Mads Østberg. Ott Tänak has moved on to DMACK WRT which will race as a manufacturer team for the first time while Elfyn Evans is left without a drive. Robert Kubica will compete in Monte Carlo but may not participate in other rallies, looking for a return to circuit racing instead.

In 2016 Rally China makes a comeback after a long absence and the season ends in Australia instead of Wales.

22–24 January Monaco12–14 February Sweden4–6 March Mexico22–24 April Argentina20–22 May Portugal10–12 June Italy1–3 July Poland29–31 July Finland19–21 August Germany9–11 September China30 September–2 October France14–16 October Spain28–30 October United Kingdom18–20 November Australia

It's hard to see anyone top Ogier, especially with the focus on the new regs. This is more of a gap-filling year then anytthing else. That said, I put Latvala down as my tip because I do hope he wins a title.

It'd be nice to see Otsberg and Paddon challenging toward the top too, but we shall see if they are up to it.

A shame about Evans. Got a bit ripped off imo.

The DMACK and Citroen (Lefebvre/Meeke) liveries look great! VW's looks classy as ever and I'm not a fan of M-Sport's this season.

Here are some interesting picks from WRC-2 where the championship battle will most likely be fiercer than in WRC. While Elfyn Evans is left without a drive in the WRC, he will be challenging for the supremacy of the WRC-2 class against Esapekka Lappi, Pontus Tidemand and some other big names. Needless to say, there will be factory seats available in the WRC class next year so that's only going to give this season an extra boost!

We'll see. Being fast in ERC is one thing but he will struggle to make top-3 in WRC-2. He won't know the stages so well which is going to be a disadvantage, too.

More WRC coverage for you, Quix:

Belgium – Telenet joins as a new partner, offering comprehensive coverage on its Flemish Play Sports network. It joins RTBF which broadcasts WRC in French in top driver Thierry Neuville’s home country.

WhiskeyTangoFoxtrot wrote:We'll see. Being fast in ERC is one thing but he will struggle to make top-3 in WRC-2. He won't know the stages so well which is going to be a disadvantage, too.

More WRC coverage for you, Quix:

Belgium – Telenet joins as a new partner, offering comprehensive coverage on its Flemish Play Sports network. It joins RTBF which broadcasts WRC in French in top driver Thierry Neuville’s home country.

Ogiér won the first stage of 2016, but Meeke kicked some butt on the second one, beating everyone by 11 seconds; enough to put him in the lead of the rally! The Volkswagens of Ogiér and Mikkelsen are behind him, followed by the Hyundais of Thierry Neuville and Hayden Paddon. It's still hard to say whether they have taken a real step forwards but at least they are fighting for a podium.

I guess, providing nothing goes wrong, if the Hyundai's can hold off Jari Matti for the rest of the rally then their pace will have improved over last year. Even better if they could claw some of the margain back to the likes of Meeke, Ogier and Mikkelsen.

I would say that Sweden is a far better place to estimate the performance of the car, though. Monte Carlo is to WRC what... well, what Monte Carlo is to F1. A drivers' rally; I bet that if you sat Ogiér down in one of those Hyundais, or even Fords, he'd win it.

The battle between Meeke and Ogiér continues tight. The VW beat the Citroën by less than a second on SS3, and the Citroën reciprocated on SS4. Now that Meeke is not driving to keep his seat, given his contract to Citroën, one can only hope that he's not so prone to overdoing it. If he could win the season opener... well, let's just say it would be nice to see a non-VW driver leading the championship, if only briefly.

Hyundai certainly found some speed for SS12. Neuville beat Sordo by ~15 seconds, who in turn beat Østberg by ~15 seconds. Latvala was unable to start the stage and he's out. Mikkelsen had a huge moment, but no damage, and the fastest time of VWs on that stage. Meeke went off road but managed to avoid disaster and lost 2,3 seconds to Ogiér; however, he seemed very concerned about the state of his car at the finish.

If Hyundai can take that pace to the final stage of the day, Neuville will still be able to challenge Mikkelsen for the third place. The battle for the win seems to go to Ogiér but 30 seconds is sometimes very little on the Monte Carlo stages.

Tops:1. The battle between Ogiér and MeekeIt was great to see the two guys trading blows for the lead, even if it had to end prematurely when Meeke's gearbox was broken in a situation that didn't seem particularly dangerous.

2. Thierry NeuvilleHe managed to pull that very sick-sounding Hyundai to the finishing line in third place, and even challenge Mikkelsen for the second place. Great start to a season.

3. Andreas MikkelsenCompleting a 1-2 finish for VW, he is a serious threat to Jari-Matti Latvala's position as VW's second driver. Don't be surprised if he wins a rally or two this season and beats Latvala in the final standings.

4. Stéphane Lefebvre's driving linesDid anyone see the live footage of the power stage? I'm not sure if that's the fastest way to do it but his very un-French way of going sideways while burning rubber was at least spectacular to watch.

5. Elfyn EvansHe took an emphatic win in the WRC-2 class and was occasionally even faster than his last year's teammate in the WRC car.

Flops:

1. Jari-Matti LatvalaHe threw absolutely vital championship points in the bin by committing yet another silly driver error. What's worse is that he hit a spectator and didn't stop to see if he's alright. He was given a somewhat lenient suspended race ban and 5,000€ fine.2. Hyundai's reliabilityTwo out their three cars experienced serious mechanical troubles on the power stage. It didn't affect their overall results but they have to make sure this doesn't happen in the future.

3. Ogiér's dominanceSébastien Ogiér can hardly be blamed for excelling at what he does, but having the same guy win over and over again is killing WRC, just like it's doing to F1. Rally is in desperate need of new, talented drivers.

4. DMACK TyresOtt Tänak claimed that his car was 'perfect', yet he was easily slowest of the WRC class. We all know that Tänak and Ford are faster than this so the tyres are the likely culprit for the lack of pace.

5. Dani SordoSlowest of the Hyundai trio; Paddon was clearly faster until crash, too, despite having the old version of the car. Sordo was able to overtake Tänak in the end, but he lost out to newcomer Lefebvre and the difference to Neuville was a whopping seven minutes.

Rally Sweden starts on Friday! Sadly, due to weather conditions, a lot of the stages have been cut from the program and there's even a chance that full world championship points will not be awarded. Nonetheless, an interesting snow-slush-mud rally is ahead.

Jari-Matti Latvala's car broke down early on and despite hanging on for a while, he had to retire from the rally for the second time in a row. Andreas Mikkelsen struck a tree stump and lost the second place to Kris Meeke, but was able to continue and is still in the running for a podium. Meeke didn't get to keep his second place for long as he broke the steering of his Citroën when he ran over a rock buried in the snow, an accident nearly identical with the one he had in Monte Carlo. He was forced to retire.

The battle for the remaining podium places remains intense. Hayden Paddon and Hyundai have shown some flashes of speed, including two back-to-back stage victories, and he's running in a very respectable 2nd place. In the meanwhile, his teammate Sordo is running 5th, about 12 seconds behind him. Interestingly, DMACK is showing a considerable increase in speed compared to their Monte Carlo performance; Ott Tänak currently sits in fourth place and is really giving Mads Østberg in the factory team a run for his money.